A new exhibition of the photographer’s work shows images of an industrial world and its effects that we can hardly recognise or believe could be real.
Newly launched at London’s Saatchi Gallery, the Extraction/Abstraction exhibition is the largest collection of work from photographic artist Edward Burtynsky, whose work has tracked the effects of human progress on natural landscapes for decades. Burtynsky’s work primarily involves photographs taken from great heights, where humanity itself is reduced to the size of ants but where the ongoing effects of agriculture, mining and construction can be seen in a way that we rarely appreciate under normal circumstances – for all the controversies over these artificial landscapes, few people really see the vast areas that have been altered and both the ingenuity and insanity involved in keeping the world supplied in everything from food to luxuries.
The fascinating thing about these photographs – extraordinarily pin-sharp and detailed studies – is the way that the subjects become beyond reality, morphing from mere destruction (or reconstruction) of the landscape into works of art that at times resemble expressionism, look like the work of Jackson Pollack or simply become oddly beautiful moments of beauty that you would never believe was an ariel shot of a landscape. So much do these images look like paintings that at times, your mind convinces you that you can almost see brushstrokes in the work, rendering the reality weirdly unreal, landscapes awash with odd textures and colours, rivers made vividly lurid, destructed mines and pits given the feel of crafted texture.
There’s a certain irony in the fact that these really are man-made artworks, however accidental that might be, creations that those involved might never see or even be aware of (or, indeed, care about). Some of the images are startling in their destructive nature – to see Indonesian landscapes effectively torn apart, the rain forest on one side and the flattened area of the loggers on the other looking like some ghastly version of someone halfway through shaving, is sobering. So much of this shows the desperation of humanity to carve up what it can, when it can – locations that have limited water supplies being pumped dry even though it will take thousands of years for those supplies to be replenished, Madagascan landscapes of potholes that look like a particularly acne-blighted youth until you read the captions and see that these holes dug by sapphire miners are literal death traps with people and animals regularly falling to their death. Greed and desperation can be a deadly combination.
The captions for the images, incidentally, are refreshingly frank – they state the facts but tend to avoid overly judgemental statements, allowing the viewer to reach their own conclusions. After years of seeing art galleries trying desperately to connect their exhibitions to the cause du jour or, worse still, engage in hang-wringing guilt or open hostility to the very works on display, it’s good to see an exhibition where the audience is credited with the ability to think for themselves. Here, we have the information about what is being shown and what the costs of that might be – and then are allowed to make our own minds up about whether or not the benefits outweigh those costs. It is, after all, very easy for us to sit back and judge the actions of desperate people in poor countries – or even the destructive behaviour of past generations where the effects of their actions might not have been fully understood. But everyone who tweets their environmental fury from their iPhone is a little hypocritical. After all, the world got along just fine without smartphones for a long time but few of us are willing to give up our own luxuries.
Burtynsky’s work reveals an uncomfortable conflict at the heart of all this destruction. Much of it is startlingly beautiful. You’d hang prints of this work on your wall if you didn’t know what it was. Even the more obviously industrial moments – the sea of greenhouses that (like much of the work here) takes your breath away at the sheer scale of it all, as vast as a medium-sized town – have an oddly unreal feel to them. More than one image looks as though it is a prototype for a Martian colony, squares of steel placed in the centre of red desert landscapes that you might find unrealistic and dehumanising if presented in a science fiction film – but here they are.
The nature of this work – the sheer scope of what is on display – demands that it be seen in the flesh, so to speak. The images we’ve shown here don’t even hint at the overwhelming intensity of these images when seen as large pieces, some filling a whole wall. You can stand in front of one of these images and lose yourself in it, focusing on detail, searching for something, anything that connects it to reality and reveals the vastness in a way that you can understand. A building here, a vehicle there. Much of it feels three-dimensional, to the point that you can stand in front of a piece and swear that it has been painted over or enhanced. Even up close, you find yourself staring in disbelief that this is a photograph of a real place. The images tempt you to reach out and touch them – don’t do that, obviously – and at points, they might unbalance you. Don’t stare for too long, too closely because your mind will be trying to process too much.
There are also some intriguing multi-media moments. The floor print that combines with a video of extraordinary, beautiful, appalling destruction is rather extraordinary, especially if you walk along looking directly down. The clip below only vaguely hints at the experience:
There is also a hugely impressive moment of augmented reality that requires the viewer to hold a screen over a flat grid of numbers, which then becomes a series of three-dimensional images that defy your understanding of reality. You can use your phone to look at this if you prefer, which might be easier on busy days. I do recommend trying to find a quiet time to visit (yes, I understand that you can hardly predict these things in advance but if possible, I’d go for early on a weekday) – you want the time and space to absorb this work. I reckon you’ll need a couple of hours at least – more if you are to take in the Bob Ezrin-produced 22-minute film In the Wake of Progress that we unfortunately didn’t have the time to view on our visit.
Well, next time perhaps. This does feel like an exhibition that is worth more than one visit. Curated by Marc Mayer over nine rooms across two floors, it becomes exhausting in the best of ways – there is so much to take in that in the end it felt overwhelming. That was our fault. We went along here with minimal expectations – again, because you just don’t get a sense of the work from online images – and had not expected anything so extraordinary and vast. I’m not sure we fully appreciated the last couple of rooms because by then it was almost too much. If you take nothing else from this piece, at least be aware that this is a big exhibition that you can’t rush – and prepare yourself accordingly.
A final note: camera geeks will be thrilled by the display of Burtynsky’s assorted equipment used over the years. It might be pulling back the curtain to a certain degree, but just look at this stuff.
DAVID FLINT
BURTYNSKY: EXTRACTION/ABSTRACTION runs until May 6th 2024. Buy tickets here.
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